Elections

The 2016 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. During this presidential election year, a President of the United States and Vice President were elected. In addition, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate were be contested. 13 state and territorial governorships and numerous other state and local elections will also be contested. More...

Contrary to popular belief, U.S. military veterans haven’t always been affiliated with the Republican Party — in fact, throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s and into the early 1990s, veterans were more likely to be Democrats, according to a new analysis published in Sociological Spectrum.

In more recent decades, veterans have begun to lean increasingly toward the Grand Old Party, researchers found.

Political humor has a long tradition in America, but ironical “fake news” is a phenomenon that distinguishes the current cultural moment. Indeed, in recent years a whole body of scholarly literature has focused on this field of political entertainment and its effects. A 2011 study from scholars at Ohio State University adds to this literature by examining how precisely such satire registers differently among liberals and conservatives — how humor is filtered through certain predispositions.

It’s difficult to choose which research articles to spotlight here as the most interesting or compelling — because scholars are doing so much interesting and compelling work. They’re continually asking tough questions to try to understand problems and trends within the digital news/social media space.

Door-to-door canvassing campaigns actually work to persuade voters and sway national election outcomes – even when they don’t encourage more people to show up to the polls, according to a June 2018 article published in American Economic Review.